For the first time in months, the fine folks at Opera has made a new version of their Opera Mobile 9.5 web browser publically available for download. The new version, v9.51b2, is called a Technology Preview (read: still in the testing phase), and is compatible with Windows Mobile 5 & 6 touchscreen devices.

The primary advertised change in the new version is compatibility with Google Gears.  On PCs, Gears allows users to store online data locally for offline viewing; in the mobile world “Gears is perfect for creating a better user experience by allowing applications to cache data more efficiently, so you can cut down on bandwidth, and carry out processes discreetly in the background,” according to the accompanying release post on the Opera web site. 

In order for the new Gears feature to work, you’ll need to install Google Gears for Windows Mobile.  A .CAB installer can be downloaded here:

http://gears.google.com/?platform=wince-opera.

Quick testing of version 9.51b2 showed it to be somewhat speedier than previous versions, both in terms of basic rendering speed and in zooming in and out.  But there are still bugs and Flash support has not yet been added. 

While we’re not exactly blown away by this new version, we still think Opera Mobile 9.5 is the best of the third-party alternative browsers for Windows Mobile (which include Iris and SkyFire) and it is light-years ahead of IE Mobile. If you’re interested, you can download the Technical Preview here.